EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — An Ysleta Independent School District (YISD) student-teacher team has been selected to travel to France and Washington this summer to participate in a prestigious national program.
Eastwood High School sophomore Danity Martinez and Eastwood Knolls International School social studies teacher Paula Perales will participate in the 2026 Albert H. Small Normandy Institute within George Washington University’s history department.
According to YISD, Martinez and Perales are the only representatives from Texas and the entire southwestern United States.
The duo will take part in an intensive college-level study of World War II’s Normandy Campaign of 1944 through intensive research and lectures over the next semester, according to the district.
The program ends in summer travel to historic and cultural sites in Washington, D.C., where they’ll also do research at the U.S. National Archives, and the Normandy region in France, where each student-teacher team will honor a fallen U.S. soldier from or near their hometown who is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer.
Throughout the semester, YISD said that Martinez and Perales will work with archival documents, including online census records, draft cards, enlistment records, letters, school yearbooks, and other sources, to identify and piece together the life of the soldier. Martinez will then present the soldier’s biography at the Normandy American Cemetery.
The Institute will pay for each student-teacher team’s course materials (assigned readings), lodging, transportation within Washington D.C. and France, airline tickets to and from France, up to $300 in reimbursement for travel to and from Washington D.C., and most meals, according to YISD.
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